This winter the lab of professor Brooke Jude published nine draft genomes of bacteria endemic to the Hudson Valley watershed. This work is a result of several senior projects performed in the Biology program, and three graduated biology students (Alexandra Bettina, Georgia Doing, and Kelsey O’Brien) are now first authors on three publications!

In this new paper, Bard professor Elias Dueker and collaborators study microbes that fly in the air, after small droplets of water get lifted from the ocean surface by the coastal wind. They found that depending on the wind speed, different amounts of microbes were picked up, and they were transported different distances into the city. They also described which types of microbes are more likely to get airborne, compared to those found below the water surface.

Animals caught in ‘ecological traps’ prefer the worst available habitats. This happens when environmental change makes habitats look superficially attractive when they are actually dangerous. Ecological traps are increasingly common, but it remains unclear how susceptible animals are to them. Aquatic flies, for example, can be highly attracted to asphalt because it reflects polarized light the same way that natural water bodies do.

In this study, Bard professor Bruce Robertson and his students exposed seven ecologically similar species of aquatic flies to different levels of polarized light, including abnormally strong polarized light associated with man-made habitats that are dangerous to them. They found that, in every species tested, animals actually preferred levels of polarized light typical of asphalt where their eggs perish, over levels typical of natural ponds. We also found that the degree of their preference depended on whether the cue was closer or more distant from a natural river.

In the fall 2017, Assistant Professor of Biology, Eli Dueker, was awarded a grant from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for his work with the Saw Kill Watershed Community (SKWC), which he founded. The goal of the project is to improve understanding about connections between land-use and stream/watershed conditions. SKWC will develop and implement long-term planning to help preserve the watershed and reduce threats and will expand regionally by reaching out to neighboring watershed community groups.

In her senior project, Biz Osborne-Schwartz’ 17 sought to improve oral rehydration therapies (ORT) for cholera patients. Working with her advisor, Professor Brooke Jude, Biz developed a protocol to study the attachment of Vibrio cholerae to chitin (a stand-in for a human intestinal cell) and other carbohydrates. This new protocol allowed her to test if adding a certain type of chemical compounds, called enzyme resistant carbohydrates, to ORT could decrease the number of bacteria in a patient infected with cholera. Biz observed a decrease in Vibrio cholerae attached to chitin beads when incubated in ORT with enzyme resistant starches, which means that more complex ORT are promising for cholera patients!

In November 2017, Bard alum Silas Busch ’16 presented the work he did during his Bard senior project at a professional society meeting “Society for Neuroscience” in Washington DC. His poster won a travel award from the David Hubel Memorial Fund (distributed through the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience society).

In his work, Silas studied how neural cells in the brain of frog tadpoles change their spiking properties when tadpoles experience different types of visual and auditory stimuli. To measure neuronal properties, Silas used a fancy electrophysiological technique, called Dynamic Clamp. He found that neurons become tuned to better process stimuli perceived by the brain, and that when visual and auditory stimuli are combined, it leads to interesting, and somewhat unexpected changes in neuronal tuning.

In this paper, Felicia Keesing and her collaborators explore the potential for positive interactions between livestock and wildlife in African savannas. Historically, the prevailing view has been that savanna landscapes should be managed for either livestock or wildlife, but not both. Keesing and her colleagues suggest that under some conditions, both groups — and the humans who share their habitat — could benefit ecologically and economically by sharing land.

In her senior project, Daniella Azulai ’17 studied antibiotic resistance of a bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa: a pathogen that plagues patients with compromised immune systems and people with cystic fibrosis. Daniella developed a new method to test how virulent (harmful) different strains of these bacteria are. Using larval zebrafish, she found that antibiotic resistance does not necessarily correlate with virulence, but rather that each strain showed a unique profile, pointing to differences in the evolution of these strains over time.